Tom Wood frustrated by another missed opportunity

Leading 10-6 at the break having had the better of New Zealand for much of the first half, England were blown away in the third quarter when the All Blacks scored three tries to take a 28-13 lead.

While Mike Brown and Chris Ashton added to Marland Yarde's first-half try in the dying stages to make the final score 28-27, Wood said it was small consolation for a team that had been desperate to level the three-Test series and claim their first win on New Zealand soil in more than a decade.

"It was there for us at half-time. It felt like we had them," Wood said. "They're a dangerous team and after half-time unfortunately we left the door ajar and they kicked it open."

Both players and coaches highlighted a lack of composure under pressure as a key reason England are failing to close out the tight matches against quality opposition.

"I'm getting fed up of having to explain it away," the flanker lamented. "Frankly it just wasn't good enough.

"To come out and cough it up the way we did in the third quarter. A lot of the credit goes to them for being so dynamic with it. But a lot of the blame lies with us."

In a frenetic game under the roof at Forsyth Barr Stadium, England were guilty of turning over too much ball by forcing the pass in the tackle, particularly when they were chasing the game - and that played right into New Zealand's hands.

"It's all very well forcing passes when you're on the front foot, you have the momentum and you have a weight of pressure behind you that allows you to take those chances," Wood said.

"But when you haven't had the ball for 10 or 15 minutes and then you do it it's criminal.

"You just need to get your hands on it, build some pressure and make them defend for a while which we didn't manage to do.

"Once you give a team like the All Blacks a sniff they just grow in stature and keep coming wave after wave.

"They've got too many dangerous runners and off-loaders. You can sense when they do get that bit of ascendancy the belief just grows, they go for the jugular and they're the best at it."